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No monthly summary this month. I barely got to keep track of what I was up to, though what little I did note down will probably be ported over to April. Instead I'll be doing a more serious life update type thing. I don't normally like talking about my own life here, especially "venting" about it for a number of reasons, but given that these are life-changing events that will impact the site as well (in one way or another) I figured it best to record it here.

First of all: I am moving! This has been planned for a while and has been fully expected. What was not expected was for my move-out date to change twice. The first time, it went from mid-May to early April (like, "April 4" kind of early) due to ~shenanigans~. That's all you need to know lol. Then from early April to mid April. So that's fun. The date shouldn't change again, though, especially as I know have three people involved in helping me move.

Second: I have a job lined up for me in the city I am moving to! Yay! They have been understanding about the move being pushed back to mid-April, so that's something, but over all the company gives me red flags. Friends think it's a bad job too. But it is a job that will pay the bills while I hunt for a better one. Just glad that I've got something for the time being. This is huge, as hopefully I'll be able to get some shiny goodies for the site I've been wanting now.

So I have been packing up to move. Most of my stuff is in boxes, my room looks empty, and poor Fish's (my cat, for the uninitiated) favorite toy is packed away as well so she doesn't loose it before moving day. It just feels so strange. And then while dealing with the physical exaustion of packing, and the mental exaustion that is landlords, we got the worst news possible.

I currently live in my grandmother's house, alongside my older brother. Instead of paying rent, we would help clean the house, I would cook meals, and we helped clean her. She was bedbound, so you can imagine the messes were not fun to clean.Part way through March, we had to call an ambulence for her. Of course, we couldn't just mourn. This is my grandma we're talking about; she's not very... organized. We were practically tearing the house apart looking for her will and other important documents. And then I was being heckled by the landlord and oh god I need more boxes and. Yeah. Fun month.

All the while, I've been pecking away at a website experiment. At this point, I have not yet commited to it, but... well, let's just say that some changes to 11ty have made me want to sniff other tools, at the very least. (side note, but I just now saw that they're sponsered by some bitcoin casino now and.... ewwwwww)

On the plus side again, KDE keeps making me smile. My desktop is now all froggy themed :) so that's something.

I don't know how to end a blog post like this off. If you're still reading, go make yourself some tea. You should be doing that instead.

This all started with Shellsharks sharing thoughts on what the "human web" is. This then led to Brennan Day attempting to redefine the indie web based on a separate set of principles. Both articles are really good and absolutely worth reading, nor can I say that either them are wrong (or right!) in their posts.

But they did get me thinking... How do I want to see "indie web" and the like defined?

After seeing so many different ways people have used indieweb, smallweb, ect. I think I have come to a conclusion.

And that conclusion is we are over-thinking this and providing too narrow of definitions.

The fact that "indieweb/smallweb/etc." (henceforth just "indieweb") has no solid meaning across groups of people means it is not currently all that useful as a term. Everyone will end up reading and interpreting it differently when it's used to describe a site or community or whatever. And so many definitions I come across ultimately end up excluding sites that also describe themselves as indie. But of course, there must be something that makes the indieweb the indieweb when compared to stuff like YouTube and Facebook.

To me, what counts as indieweb is very simple and very broad: a web independent from capitalistic interests, based on personal websites, reference sites, and small project sites (and similar sites that I'm probably failing to think of!). A web independent from shareholders, sensational algorithms, surveillance, etc. That's all. If you host your website with a service like Neocities, cool! You're indie. Use a VPS? Fully self host? Just as indie! Hand code every last bit? Use a static site generator? Or a content management system? All indie, and all fair ways to make a site. Use traditional HTTPS? Use Gopher or Gemini protocol instead? All equally indie. The indieweb simply exists as a opposite (but not necessarily the only opposite) to the corporate web.

As Brennan mentioned, there will always be dependencies. We will always be reliant on registrars for our domains. Some VPSs are more corporate than others. So on and so forth. But getting away from the corporate web itself does so much for people that I think making that the core of it is plenty enough.

And the only reason I specify "based on personal websites, reference sites, small project sites, etc." is because, while generally opposite to the corporate web (if managed properly), forums and fediverse are more social focused and thus not indie in my opinion.

Of course, these are all just my thoughts. I recognize my definition is fairly broad and the one exception fairly arbitrary. I think this is something the indie web is still trying to figure out, so I'd be very curious what everyone else thinks! I don't have webmentions set up yet, but this is the first post I'm cross posting to my Dreamwidth if you would like to leave a comment there (currently does not require an account). You can also shoot me an email at grubdog@proton.me if you'd prefer B)

This month's post is a little late, as you may have noticed. That's because Febuary was capstoned with a virtual convention and the only way to include it was to put off making this post by a few days.

With that, let's get into the summary!

Starting wuth some bad news, just because I'm annoyed and need to vent lol. I've been job hunting since I've grauated, which has been very rough (as it has been for most Americans). Had two nearby places reject my application in less than a day each, meaning that a human most certainly never saw those applications. One I had to send in twice because I never even got confirmation it went through the first time. Then I had a remote job drag me along for a few weeks promising they'd eventually get back to me, only for them to eventually go radio silent. So that's cool. Very cool.

At this point a remote job would work best for me because I'm set to move in mid-May!!! Yippee!!! I have plenty saved up, so I can do the move just fine, but an income would be so beneficial for so many reasons. But because it's already March now, I think it's best to focus on jobs I could take with me to the new place between now and then. So uh, fingers crossed. Though I do have an idea now... hmmm...

I've also gotten back into finding and reading academic articles, because I am a nerd. I've only read one of my collection so far, which is listed below, but I still have the others ready to be read B) I also want to re-read my media text books from when I took media studies classes. Yeah.

This month I also tried out the Mojeek search engine. I'm trying to de-Google as much as I can, and the fact that bing sometimes blocks search results for no reason (see: Bing blocking all of Neocities makes Duck-Duck-Go (DDG) less than ideal. Plus they jumped on the whole AI thing. I tried Startpage for a while, but then they got an AI thing too and constantly advertize it despite me requesting that they stop. Thus: Mojeek. So far it's... not perfect. Some of the results could use some tightening up, as I don't always get what I actually want. But it does show a lot of promise and I enjoy it quite a bit! Right now I use it whenever I can and, when it doesn't pull up what I need, I switch to the no-Ai version of DDG.

Lastly: Citris Con. This is a Boy's Love/Fujoshi/Fandom focused convention that now happens late Febuary. And it was incredible. I attended pannels about the history of the Star Trek fandom and how it served as the begining of fandom as we know it. I went to a BL writing workshop. I went to a zine workshop where I made a very self-indulgent 8-page folded zine, and then another, and I still have two more blanks to fill! I learned about ship manifestos and comfort character letters and archiving fandom history. I got book reccomondations and show reccomondations and got to be around other freaks /affectionate. I even got to help with FujoCoded's pannel a bit by answering some questions. Point is, I had a great time and my only regret was being too shy and overwhelmed to talk in the actual server. I only really stuck to the panels. Oh well.

'Self-host it' is not the answer - Self-hosting is a really cool thing if you can do it. Hell, I want to self-host if I can manage it. But not everyone is capable of it, so offering "just self-host it" as a solution to how others manage their tech isn't a great answer. Especially when the actual answer is seeking better legal protections for the average person.

What is the Indie Web? - On a similar note to the above, how should we define "indie web"? How much do you have to own for it to be "independent"? Or should we think of it more as "individual"? Honestly a post that deserves a full response I think, but worth a read.

The Political Effects Of X’s Feed Algorithm - Freely available academic article that goes into the ways X/Twitter's algorithm effect people's political views. In short, switching from a chronological feed to a algorithmic feed pushes people's opinions further to the right. Switching to a chronological feed has no effect on your political view, meaning influences done by the algorithm cannot be undone by X itself.

Gemini Takes Flight - The Gemini Protocol is a cool little protocol separate from the internet/https that offers a more laid back experience. While not perfect (I'll probably make my own post on it later), it's very fun and worth a peek. This post gives you a bunch of resources to get started!

The Open Source Design Stack - Software as a Service (SaaS) has ruined a lot of once-good programs. Open source software isn't a silver bullet to this problem per-say, but it doesn provide a good alternative. Just research all mentioned programs before using or disregarding them, I don't agree with all opinions here but the article as a whole is very good.

The Slow Death of the Power User - Fun facr, I worked as a writing tutor for a university for a while. Some of my Freshman students didn't even know how to open their damn emails, having grown more accustomed to social media and text messaging as communication options. Growing up, the excuse for not being taught digital literacy was that we would simply absorb this information by being around technology. Lol. I was fortunate to grow up around normal computers, including dad's boxy Windows 98 desktop, but I still had to teach myself so much when I decided to get into webweaving. While there are genuine discussions to be had regarding "where should the general tech lit. level be?" and the clear (in my opinion) distinction between someone who simply is technologically literate and someone who is a full-on power user (as I would consider myself the former but not the later) this is still a very good read.

Why I Can't Trust You With The Term "Purity Culture" and It Has Come To My Attention That Some of You Have No Idea Where The Term Purity Culture Comes From - Two posts by Coyote on the same topic -- the misuse of the term "purity culture" by the internet at large to mea "you are saying xyz is a bad thing and I don't like that" when it really refers to a very spesific cycle of abuse. Both focus on very diffrent misused of the term, one a far bigger stretch than the other (being against AI is "purity culture" now, I guess?) and both are absoluetly worth a read.

Trans Music and The Desire to Exist - Video going over various trans musicians that make music about being trans, for tans people. All with the core idea of wanting to just exist and love yourself. Warning for flashing lights.

I stream nothing, and I am happy. - Algorithms suck. Shocking statement from local smoll website. Veronica here just goes over some issues with algorithms that many in this space are familiar with as well as how to start backing up your DVD/Blu-Ray collection digitally. Absolutely watch it for the latter point, its super helpful for that.

How Steam Became The Only Good Monopoly In Existence - Despite the title, this video is very critical of Valve. Almost like Monopolies are inherently bad. Talks about what choices Valve made with Steam that lets it be a good service, what traits Valve has that lets them make those choices where other tech companies fail to, and the shady shit Valve still does that lets the CEO have enough money to build a mega yacht. Anyways, whenever possible, buy games from itch.io or (even better) straight from the devs.

Why Do Arcade Games Boot Up Like This? - Explanation for how Arcade games boot up and how they are debugged. Very cool little video. Has flashing lights, but gives ample warning for flashing scenes.

What If you Can't Reject Convenience? - The concept of "convenience" is one I plan on making a post on someday, eventually, I swear, but this video does present a problem with how people often view privacy as an "all or nothing" affair when it really isn't. While completely removing privacy invading aspects of your digital life is better (for your privacy) there are middle grounds that exist if the cost is simply too high.

femtanyl Interview - The Backlight Podcast Ep. 37 - Interview with artist femtanyl. I don't have much to add to this, but it's good B) This is in "listened" but it is a YouTube video.

Woah, new year... I think I'm getting better at picking and choosing what media to put into the monthly summaries. Maybe.

Anyways, this month has mostly been job hunting and recovering from how busy December was for me. I've also been doing a lot of work on refining my webdev skills, as there's much to be improved there. I have another site overhaul in the works (because of course I do), so hopefully the skills I learn will help make my code cleaner and all that fun stuff. Also got some fun ideas for the future, just got to keep working on the researching pre-reqs for those.

I also have a move in the not too distant future!!! Very exciting. I've been living with family my entire life up to this point, so I'm eager to move on at last. I don't own much, so most of my stuff is already together (just needs actually put away when the time comes) but I have been taking the time to sort through my clothes, books, etc. to decide what I actually want to keep and what I'm giving away.

Oh, I've also been making moves to take better care of myself. It can be hard when depression saps away your energy (and IRL shenanigans exacerbate that problem) but I've been doing better and managing.

Don't have as much to write for this month, but hopefully starting February I can begin posting normal blog posts again instead of just these recaps.At least I was able to update other parts of this site and not just a blog post, hehe. If you don't feel like checking the change log: I added some new links to the link hoard. Have fun with them.

The Dry Spell (links to store page) - Book I started back during Midwest Furfest and finished this month, it's a VERY good piece of historical furry fiction. 1920's American prohibition with vampires and weres... And anthro animals, of course. Also pretty queer with an ending featuring one of the healthiest relationship conversations I've read in fiction holy shit. Highly recommend it if any of these elements interest you, just know its rated 18+/Adults Only by the publisher for some (fairly tame imo) sex scenes.

How I Fixed the Legendary 16-Player Game Boy Game - There was a game on Game Boy (as in, OG brick Game Boy) meant to be able to hook up 16 Game Boys with wires in a horrific fashion to allow for a very slow and retro FPS shoot out game. Nintendo shut down the idea for it, as their four-player wire thingie was around the corner, but the code for it is still in the game... Mostly. Just needed a little patching from a random demon on YouTube.

I Built a Medieval House Using Primitive Techniques (Commentated Version) - Hour long YouTube video with very relaxing commentary of a guy building an Anglo-Saxon pit house using only tools and techniques they would have used.

BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, And Sadomasochism - 18+, covers NSFW content, documentary on the Internet Archive (because YouTube took down the original link lol) about the lesbian SM community. Goes over culture, misconceptions, and how SM generally works. If you find the intro morally repulsive in any way, you're the type who needs to sit your ass down and watch this.

3 approaches to Accessibility Design in Squeakross: Home Squeak Home - Indie devs uploaded a small presentation to YouTube on how they designed their game with accessibility in mind from the start. While they obviously discuss things from a gamedev POV, I do think a lot here can (and should!) be taken away as lessons for web design as well.

The History of Flatpak - PeerTube video, but basically a podcast. Is what it says on the tin; discusses where Flatpaks came from and how they've changed.

Femtanyl - Musician on YouTube who uploads mosh-pit music. My friend describes it as "transgender rage" and "noise music". Absolutely recommend.

The Last Crimson Leaf, Steampianist - Not the kind of music I usually listen to but a very sweet song recommended by a friend. Has some literal meanings about a tree but can be interpreted in many different ways.

This month was mostly a rest month as I geared up for the holidays. But I did do a few fun things!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I went to Midwest Furfest at the start of the month! I already talked at-length about it, but the short version is that I had a lot of fun there and loved getting to see my friends :D While at Midwest I also bought some books, one of which I started to read. Didn't get to finish it, hence it not being in the "read" list, but I have been greatly enjoying it so far.

While at Midwest I also bought a beginner's crochet kit. With it I put together my first two projects. They're both very scuffed but I'm still super proud of them. I've sense gotten some more yarn! Just need to decide what I want to make...

I started work on my fanfic again, and the next chapter is almost done... so close... I could probably finish it today if I locked in, as I just need to draw the pictures and maybe edit.. and then post... I also also started to play Pokemon X again AND caught my very first shiny ever >:3 so yeah this month has just been about getting back into old hobbies huh?

And lastly Was Christmas of course. Haven't celebrated New Years' yet as this is going up on the last day of the month as all these posts are INTENDED to, but I can talk about Chris Kringle. Went to Grandpa's as we do every year and ate too much food as I do every year. 10/10 experience. Most of my family doesn't know what to get me so they just gave me money lol, only one who got me gifts was dad. He gave me some candy, a shower set, a Godzilla plushie, and a copy of Stray.

All around, a good month.

As for new years resolutions? Hmmm... finally get a job, in the face of this stupid ass job market, and also keep getting better at coding B)

Why Learning to Code is So Damn Hard - There are so many beginner resources, a fair bit of advanced resources, but not much in between. Compound this with a lack of knowledge of how to look stuff up (common and expected w/ beginners and mid-level) among a few other things and you get a recipe for a phase of learning that is hell. A very good read, especially if you're just getting started. Or if you're at the phase where you feel like slamming your head into a wall. Like me.

Are Steam prices dropping - and should you care? - Watched some videos on YouTube that cited this, but I felt they were re-phrasing it in a way that'd get them clicks lol. Basically, on Steam, indie game prices seem to be lowering. This data is based on the most purchased games. A fascinating dichotomy to AAA's insistence to slowly raise the prices more, especially on console.

Concept Artists Say Generative AI References Only Make Their Jobs Harder - Some video game artists were interviewed about their process and AI. Turns out AI makes it harder, even when the output is "just" a reference. Both because it takes away from some key parts of their process and because they feel the need to provide their team with better, more specific references that take extra time to reverse-engineer from the generated image.

You Can't Make Something Accessible to Everybody - I will always argue that it is far easier to add accessibility features to your website than people claim. That being said, making it accessible to every person across all possible scenarios is just impossible. As the post says: add accessibility features, understand them, and be transparent about what features you have included.

A Story of Trauma, Paradoxes, and a Toilet; A Majora's Mask Analysis - I love me a good literature analysis of a video game. Majora's Mask has been done to death by this point, but I quite like this one a lot. Talks about the trauma of growing up and the symbolism of the games contradictions (though I will say right now that the toilet thing is mostly just a hook/algorithm thing; not egregious enough to be click bait but ultimately is just used to introduce the core ideas).

The Spinda Rabbithole Goes Deeper Than You Think - 4 billion(ish) Spinda on Earth... Isn't it beautiful?

Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam and Exposing Honey's Evil Business Model and The Honey Files Expose Major Fraud! - Story I have been following for a while regarding a big company stealing money from smaller companies and YouTubers + other internet artists. Goes over exactly what they did and how they got away for it for so long, including by going into the code (which is fascinating in a sort of morbid way...)

Who Wrote Caramelldansen? - 45 minute history lesson on a meme. That's all.